Salazar Slytherin Shadow Life
by astala7
Summary: Salazar Slytherin - famous dark wizard and founder of Hogwarts. Who knows his true self? Who knows about his past, his family? Only himself. His days at Hogwarts are counted as Salazar decides to write down his life. translation/biography


Tried to translate my own fanfiction. The moment someone says it's horrible, it will be deleted.

„direct speech"  
~parseltongue~

XxX

„WHERE IS THIS DAMMED LITTLE BASTARD!?"

Salazar just stepped out of the bathroom of his upper quarters as he was forced to jump aside to avoid clashing into Godric who was in a mad fury.

Slytherin smirked at the sight. If he hadn't hear the sound of the other teachers coming he probably wouldn't be able to hold back his laughter.

Godrics red head of curls, normally shoulder length and a little bit messy but always neat, now resembled the wild mane of a lion. It didn't really help that the former brown eyes were now slitted like a cat ones'. It was screamingly funny.

Lady Ravenclaw hurried after the lord. Her arms were covered with feathers and she couldn't stop flapping them. But the wings were far away from that of the eagle her crest showed. They looked more like chicken wings, which came along wonderful with the red crown on her head. She looked just as angry as Godric.

Helga Hufflepuff followed a little slower. Her situation was probably the worst. Her usually dark blond hair were black and white striped and her arms were thick and short with long claws instead of fingernails. Salazar wondered how she had managed to get into her robes like this.

„He didn't do anything with you", Godric snarled discontent and picked some of Salazars black strands. Coming right out of the shower they were still wet and reached his shoulders.

"That wasn't you, was it!?", asked Rowena angry. "Because it isn't really funny. We can't go to breakfast like this."

Salazar lifted an eyebrow. "Honestly, you should know me better."

"Maybe Peeves just fears him enough to not to try to prank him", Helga reassured the others.

"You are mistaken", Salazar countered. "When I looked in a mirror after my shower instead of hair a whole nest of snakes bustled on my head. The trick is just so old that I've always got a counter potion in my store." And of course the snakes were determined to help him with it.

Rowena rolled her eyes. "Well now, have you seen Peeves anywhere?"

"I just told you I came from a shower. When the hell should I've seen him?"

"Well, if you see him just tell us", Helga said in a soft voice and turned around. As Rowena followed her and Salazar wanted to continue his way to the Great Hall Godric grabbed his arm to hold him back. Salazar hissed irately and wanted to break free but Godrics grasp was to strong.

"What's it?", he snubbed the red head. He didn't like it to be touched without a warning and Godric knew that!

"Where is he?", Godric asked urgently – only the effect was to no avail because of his momentary form.

"For the third time, I-"

"You didn't say explicitly that you don't know where he is. I know it, Sal, you try to make excuses all along with half-truths, wordplays and rhetoric questions. So?"

Salazar hesitated for a moment. But Godric had seen through him and sooner or later it would be revealed nonetheless.

"He's in the dungeons", he admitted finally.

"And?"

"Hung up at his thumbs."

"And?"

"Over a fuming cauldron of blood-splitting furuncles and now get off me!"

Godric let him go but didn't look quite content.

"Sal, didn't we agree on excepting torture from school punishments?"

"Why torture? He just bites his time. That had never done any damage to anyone. When we whipped McLaggan last week in the courtyard you didn't say anything either."

„That was because McLaggan instigated first years catching a centaur foal to rip out his hair for some dark potion. After that the herd almost declared war on us! Peeves is harmless and anyway this concerns all of us. So we should think about a punishment together."

"Imagine, this morning I didn't know that you were hit with a lightning bolt. Just think of it as the punishment for his last ten pranks together."

"You get him here. Now!"

"No. There are three dozen cauldrons which have to be cleaned down there."

"You had your part. Now let us have something from it too."

Salazar snorted scornfully. It didn't matter what Godric had in mind for the boy, it would only reassure him.

"You get him on noon. Not sooner. And no word to the ladys." (Puh, da fällt mir gerade echt nix ein, aber es müsste definitive umgeändert warden…sogar Word zeigt es fehlerhaft an xD)

Godric frowned which just let him look even more like a fierce lion.

"We'll speak about that later, Slytherin", he said before leaving him alone.

Meanwhile Salazar wasn't very keen on having breakfast now, but if he didn't show up the pupils would think he would hide because of the prank. So he went to the Great Hall and sat down at the teachers table between Rowena and Castel, the astronomy teacher who they had employed at the beginning of the year. Castel wasn't approximating talented as the four founders, but on his special field he surpassed them all. Nobody of them was ever very interested in sky and stars. The pupils didn't like the older man. He was strict and gazed at the little beasts with flashing blue eyes in such an evil manner as if he dreamed about thumbscrews. What he probably did.

Salazar couldn't really say he liked him but he did know how to deal with this kind of people. Castel was after all the only wizard they could find for astronomy who wasn't misogynous. He hated all children alike.

Salazar finished his breakfast in only half an hour and mastered ignoring the whispers and giggles from the students who pointed at the head table.

Meanwhile Helga had normal arms again and Rowena had got rid of most of the feathers but their hair style was still extraordinaire.

As Salazar left the hall he met Lady Lorsano, arithmantic and divination professor and greeted her with a nod. Lorsano was new too and the second addition to the staff since the foundation of the school. The number of students had increased in such a way in the last years that they couldn't even teach the different houses together but had to form classes. Even when the first to third years didn't have to take all subjects the founders still had far too much to do and considered employing other assistants to take over some of their work. Salazar would be more than content with that. Currently he had three subjects, which made twelve classes and that was definitely too much.

Before his first class started Salazar had still some time and so he went to his lower quarters to relax a little. The thought of Peeves amused him as he made his way to his hiding place deep under the school. Neither a student nor a teacher knew where his lower chamber was. And that was a good thing since he stored all his secrets here and he just knew it would only result in more arguments if somebody ever found out about this place.

~Welcome back, masssster~, a soft hiss greeted him.

Salazar threw himself into a comfortable arm chair and as if he had ordered them to do so orange flames started to flicker in the fireplace.

The room was decorated with dark green silk-like fabric. Pictures and portraits with snakes and members of his family could be seen on the walls. The backside of the room was dominated by a four-poster bed with silver hangings and on the left side stood a big desk. A door leaded to a small bathroom, another to a library which was connected to the potions lab and the store room. The third door leaded to the entrance hall in which could be found a deep trough with fresh water. It was the favorite place of his familiar where she could swim and wriggle around the stone pillars and statues. The tallest of them hid the entrance to her nest, a big round room, pitch-black like a limestone cave put out with foliage and hay to make it comfortable. Nobody disturbed her there, not even Salazar.

Today Saliha was neither in the entrance hall nor in her nest or in the pool. Today she lay rolled up in front of the fireplace, eyes firmly closed and tasting his smell while flicking her splitted tongue.

Usually Salazar slept in his upper quarters in the castle. That created less sensation. Like the quarters of the others they were located near the common room of his house. In most cases he was there when something happened again that woke the whole school up.

However, more often than less it happened that Salazar was nowhere to be found. Than he was with a probability bordering on certainty down here in his chambers, the lower quarters. Saliha's presence calmed him down. She had waited in his rooms for him, which showed that she noticed too how often he came along lately. Of course she was happy about it but sometimes she indicated her worry.

The giant snake being too long with six meters to be taken along all the time like he had done only five years ago, nuzzled her head in his hand and hissed benevolently as he petted her scales.

~Now he also wants to abolish the torture~, Salazar said without any transition. ~He was blustering and screaming because he was so angry at this boy but he's still against corporal punishment.~

~Not all human beingssss enjoy hurting people.~

~I don't either, Saliha. It's not about joy. It's about humiliation. Humility shows them their place. The boy has not the vaguest notion of a life in the dirt. I certainly wouldn't treat him like that if he would use his talent in another way. Any other way, really. Hell, I'm glad he's not in my house.~

~Did you explain it that way to the othersss too?~

~They know.~

~Do they? There're alwayss falssse rumors about you. How should they be able to know what'sss true and what'ssss not when you never explain yoursssself?~

Salazar was silent for a moment. Godric knew him. The Ladys knew him. After all they worked with each other for years. But as he thought about it... Did he ever explain to them why he acted as he did? Well, maybe not _that_ detailed... Some of his reasons were quite personal after all and he, plain and simple, didn't have any ambitions to talk about them. He didn't explain his actions, but he always had good reasons for them and the founders did know that... didn't they?

Again his thoughts wandered towards Godric. Salazar knew practically everything about the heir of Gryffindor. The whole life story, if you want so. Grown up in a rich, old and light pureblood family as the oldest son of a five-headed caboodle he inherited the most. However, almost all cash was invested in this stupid war because the git just _had_ to fall in love with this princess from Egypt, who of course had to be rescued before being forced into some harem. Gryffindor conquered half the country and subdued all local magicians until some beduins had the idea to slay the lady-love without further ado, sending him back home with neither fame nor faith. His people still sung about his bravery shown in battle but besides Godric being a great warrior he wasn't a ruler. He didn't have any ambitions to keep the conquered area and when his reason for the war lied dead before him on the flood he just threw everything away.

His time as main magician at court followed shortly after when Salazar got to know him. When Godric sold his complete inherited property to finance the building of a magical school, Salazar finally named him a totally hopeless idiot. At least this, the help of the Ladys and himself, everything gone well but the school wasn't of course a great financial source of income. It just yielded enough to break even what was necessary for its admittedly huge maintenance. None of the professors had a problem with that; they loved their life at Hogwarts. Even though today the world out there asked itself why the four greatest wizards respectively witches of this age wasted their time and talent handling little children.

At days like this Salazar asked himself the same.

So Slytherin knew everything of importance about Gryffindor and a lot of personal facts about the Ladys too. But what knew the founders about him? What was known about Salazar Slytherin, the most popular black magician of this time? Barely something, he had to admit. Saliha was right. How could he ever find a compromise at this huge difference of opinion if the other knew nothing about him and thus couldn't understand him? So far, Slytherin had shrugged of the rumors about him but know he realized that he didn't want to be... misconceived. He wanted people to comprehend his decisions and to follow his path.

Salazar thought a while about what to do until he had an idea. The magician went to his desk and sat down in a huge armchair. Then he reached for a roll of parchment and a feather. He moistened it briefly with his tongue and plunged it into the inkstand. For some seconds, the feather lingered above the parchment while Salazar searched for appropriate words. Then he began to write...

_My name is Salazar Slytherin. Whoever finds these memoirs might put them aside heedless because my name doesn't mean anything to him. But if my greatest lifework should outlast time, then I want to write down how it came to existence for all following generations._

_The history of Hogwarts is bounded inseparable to the history of its founders. It's bounded inseparable to my life. It is bounded inseparable to the experiences and the spirit of our age that influenced our decisions. I can't speak for the others but I can tell what induced me to make my decisions. To make that understandable, I have to go back in time. Back to a time when I was still a young child..._

_I originate from a poor but old pureblood line. My mother was a healer, my father developed curses and shields that were bound to certain objects or places. I inherited my grandfather's wand. They were expensive in this time, after all. It means I was very lucky; my three little siblings never had one. Mother and father taught me to use magic from an early age on and they were proud about my talent. At that time I shared a room with my brother and my two sisters. These two youngest couldn't even walk probably and my brother was constantly sick. None of them was a sufficient playmate. But there was no harm to it because I had my other friends. When I told my mother about them once she shut me up and murmured I mustn't tell anybody about them. So they were my secret friends, the little snakes and serpents that lived in the small forest near the fens. I was the only one that could speak with them, or at least I was the only one doing it. Unfortunately they weren't very intelligent. All in all my life couldn't be more perfect._

Salazar stopped and frowned. He waved his wand in a tempus charm and noticed his intuition being right. There were only ten minutes left until his first class, potions. With another spell he dried the ink and sealed the parchment. Besides his chamber being absolutely safe and nobody could ever enter without his permission, he laid some heavy wards around the paper before standing up. Was he being paranoid? Well, it wasn't paranoia if they were really out for you, was it? And there were a whole lot of people out there for Salazar.

~You're being attentive as always, aren't you?~, he whispered to Saliha.

~Of course~, she hissed, convolving her body. ~And... Massster?~

~Yes?~

~I'm really happy whenever you visssit me. But ssstill, you shouldn't argue ssso much with him.~

He didn't even need to ask who she meant.

Salazar thought about the morning. We'll speak about that later, that was what Godric had said. The real fight was still imminent.

The potions master sighed. ~I'll try.~

XxX

Ok, it sounds better in german by far. You see, this fanfiction practically screams for a beta. So if you say I'm a hopeless case or you offer to help me getting better either. In this case I would gladly continue translating the rest of this, already completed, fanfiction of mine.

Coming soon (maybe): One of Sal&Ric's legendary fights and Salazars reason for hating muggles.


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